[License-discuss] How can we as a community help empower authors outside license agreements?

[Tobie Langel]

Thanks for your comments, Gil.

A few tentative answers inline.

On Thu, Mar 19, 2020 at 7:43 PM Gil Yehuda via License-discuss <
license-discuss at lists.opensource.org> wrote:

> > I believe that to many open source practitioners, the meaning of open
> source is much broader than the OSD.
>
> It's even more complicated. The term _open source_ is also used by the
> intelligence industry too, and means something very different. Looking for
> open source jobs in the greater Washington DC area yields two unrelated
> clusters of jobs! All the more reason to ensure we have a clear and
> unambiguous definition that we can use when using the term in our more
> formal settings.
>

Heh! I wasn't even aware of that.

We all understand that "open source" is more than a license. It's a set of
> many facets.[*] But when speaking about licenses, there's value in a clear
> OSD.
>

Agreed.

> Clearly implied there is a broader set of values that are necessary to
> meet the spirit of open source than just following the OSD to the letter.
>
> The open source movement has been reluctant to codify all its facets into
> a fixed definition. For example: Open Source implies a development
> methodology that involves many people from different places working
> together. The best projects have that. However the OSD does not require it.
> A solo developer can publish an open source project and refuse to accept a
> pull request. It misses the spirit and intent, but meets the definition.
>

Agreed though as I mentioned in my previous message, some practitioners
today barely consider this as open source ("it's open source in name only").

Is this a flaw? I'm not sure there's a better alternative. OSD is a floor
> for licenses, not a description of the movement.
>

I couldn't agree more. You've noted that I'm absolutely not suggesting
(all) licenses should have these ideals built-in. The crux of the problem
is that they no longer meet the OSD when they do. Now, as I mentioned
earlier, I'm well aware that there might be limitations that would prevent
such licenses from passing broad legal scrutiny, and I agree that this
would be a valid reason not to certify them. But were there hypothetically
no such limitations (which I think is precisely the hypothesis a working
group on this topic should test), preventing such limitations at the OSD
level wouldn't make sense.

>... nor do I believe most open source practitioners have heard of the term
> "source available." I hadn't until fairly recently.
>
> OK, so maybe this is something worth exploring and socializing. ESM
> appears to me to be more similar to Source Available in that both seek to
> leverage most of the facets of open source, but employ a restriction of
> some sort. Whereas the motivations differ, the modality is similar. It's
> worth exploring what those folks have done (and they've done quite a bit in
> the past year), that I think there's something to gain from this.
>

Sorry. I should have been more clear. By "fairly recently" I meant a couple
of years or so. I'm quite familiar with the term and its connotation. I
absolutely don't think that's what folks in the broad open source community
have in mind when they think of their practice.


> So instead of "let's fight Open Source" or no, now "let's change Open
> Source" let me suggest "let's figure out where we best fit in the
> collection of open-culture movements."  (which frankly includes more than
> open source).
>

That goes back to the tension I was describing earlier. You basically have
two parties claiming that what they do is open source, one of which doesn't
agree that what the other is doing is open source, neither having a formal
claim to the term. Hairy!


> Footnote:
> [*] I recently wrote about this in the 3rd of a 4 part blog post here:
> https://www.linkedin.com/in/gilyehuda/detail/recent-activity/posts/. I
> suggest that over time we evolved from ethos to add concerns related to
> license, compliance, development model, economic model, business model,
> influence, marketing, community, sustainability, and inclusivity etc. Each
> of those are important to consider.
>

I've been reading your series. Great stuff!

--tobie
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